How can I know which website the member has visited previously?

Question

So, I can use getenv('HTTP_REFERER') to get an URL which the member has visited previously, but it works only if it's the same website. I want this:
for example. the member firstly visits google.com then goes to my website. I want to show him, that previously he visited a google.com website. How can I do it if it's possible?

Answer 1

$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER'] works fine for either case, as long as they followed a link from google.com to get to your site. Example: http://mrozekma.com/referer.php

Answer 2

You can only use the HTTP_REFERER header, and capture it the moment the visitor comes to your site. It might not be set, it might be false. There is no other way (and rightly so, I value my privacy). If you need to 'remember' the data store it in a session.

Answer 3

The simple answer is this is not possible. You can get the direct referrer if you're lucky, but nothing else (ie not the referrer of the referrer for example). Being able to retrieve the full history of a browser tab via JavaScript or post-back would be a major security issue.

Answer 4

Grabbing a browser's history is considered a breach of privacy, so any method that might exist to grab it would be considered a security bug in the browser.

Note that even the HTTP_REFERER header is considered to be a privacy issue by many people, so it's either disabled or filtered quite often ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referrer#Referrer_hiding ).